A Foggy Day
by ManofManyHats
Summary: You know your prey. They are wicked people with cruel eyes and ravenous souls. They are the defeated, the villains, the ones with failed plans and broken dreams. "Again," you tell them, voice a thick mist, "I can let you try again."
1. Chapter 1

_Written for the Pro-bending Circuit | Round 5_

 _Team:_ Laogai Lion Vultures

 _Position:_ Earthbender

 _Task_ : Write a character(s) experiencing the same day over and over.

 _Prompt:  
_ Medium (character) Ozai  
Medium (character) Kuvira  
Medium (location) Republic City  
Hard (song) One More Light - Linkin Park

 _Bonus:_ Use of element

 _Word Count:_ 2624

 _AN:_ Buckle up kiddos, it's a villain and angst party and I ain't slowing down one bit. It's the last round before semi-finals, and it's go big or go home!

* * *

" _The Fog of Lost Souls is a spirit prison for humans ... imprisoning you  
in your own darkest memories."_

* * *

You know your prey well. He was once Prince. Once Firelord. Once Phoenix King. Now a convict, with hair streaked gray and body withered, trapped forever in walls of stone in a city he once ruled.

One day is all it took for him to turn to this.

You waft through the iron bars, fill his cell with smoke, wrap him in a misty embrace, cloud his eyes with fog. Your hazy words flow into his mind.

 _You're angry. You should be._

His golden eyes are trapped in your gray.

 _It wasn't fair. Can I help you?_

He has sat here for years, brewing in anger, waiting for your offer. He is yours before you even speak.

 _Again, Ozai. I can let you try again._

* * *

The first time is a throwaway. He is too hysteric, too frenzied with the feeling of the comet pulsing through his veins. The chance to redeem his most cursed day sets Ozai ablaze, and he burns short and fast. He throws every ounce of strength he has to blast the child from the sky, to reshape the destiny he'd been given. Lightning whips across the red sky, like glass breaking a thousand times over.

But it isn't enough. The child still has the Avatar state, and Ozai has strained himself too much.

"No!" he screams when his bending is torn from his body once more. You cloud his eyes, and the moment is gone, but Ozai still screams, "Again! I'll do it again!"

The next time, he is methodical. His breath is shallow as he walks into the airship for the third time, eyes flashing with the images of what will be (what has been? What could be? He's not sure). He waits, beat by beat, for the perfect moment.

He does not join his firebenders when they begin their inferno. He does not fly off the deck the moment he catches sight of the Avatar. He waits, and waits. Then like a lightning bolt, he falls.

Ozai knows this moment already. He knows the Avatar will fly to him now, will throw a mass of stone towards him next, will bend an arc of ice here and a fume of fire there. He knows the Avatar will have a moment of pause when he catches Ozai's first bolt of lightning. That knowledge alone is enough.

Electricity claws into the air again, and this time, the Avatar has no time to redirect it. Time nearly stops as the Avatar falls.

On his third chance, Ozai has done what he has always lusted to do, what had drove him to you in those years locked in prison. Destiny has been bent to his will, and Ozai laughs and spews fire, drunk with victory.

You laugh too, because you know better. Ozai may as well be throwing a fireball on a mountainside; a stone may crumble, but he will never make it fall. He can have his small victory, but he cannot keep it.

In the background, Ozai's airships are carcasses burning in the ocean, except one. One airship left, and it is no longer his, and it flies closer and closer still. You watch as Ozai cackles, you watch as the airship crashes into the stone spire, toppling him to the ground to join the Avatar.

You are there to catch him. _Again, Ozai?_

Mania flares in his eyes. "Another failed day," he thinks aloud, "but so close."

To Ozai, the rest of the world may as well be asleep. He rules this day, he knows the possibilities, the brilliance that could happen if only this day went perfect. If only _he_ makes it perfect.

So Ozai tries again.

He steps into his airship. Waits, then flies to meet his match once more. Lightning streaks from his fingertips twice. The Avatar falls.

Turning around, a red blimp is throttling towards him. In the window are three faces, the Avatar's allies. Their faces flash to horror as the nose of their airship tilts down. Ozai's fists are ablaze, and so is the red cloth of the blimp.

Uncontrollable, the ship grazes the stone spire then crashes into the earth, making the world tremble around it. Ozai slips, tries to steady his fall, and fails. He lands mere meters from the burning wreckage, alone, miles away from his nearest ally and unable to move. Darkness seeps into his vision. The comet passes the horizon.

And again.

He steps into his airship. Waits, then flies to meet his match once more. Lightning streaks from his fingertips twice. The Avatar falls. The airship burns.

He lands on his feet, and walks to the nearest army post, where his generals are there to welcome him. Before the end of the day, Ozai sends word of his victory all across the world. Before the end of the day, Ozai's son, brother and the Avatar's waterbender fall upon him, and they have no mercy.

 _So close,_ you tell him, as his body shakes with the weight of his failed days. _Again?_

The sun rises and sets a hundred times on the same day. Once he fights without leaving the airship. Once he asks his daughter to join him. Once he stays at the palace with her. Once he hides in the catacombs. Never does the day end in victory for him.

"Again!"

"Once more!"

"Another chance!"

 _Again. Again._ You sing-song to his half-crazed eyes. _I'm sure you'll get it this time._

Maddening. Maddening.

And once, he wins. The airships spit their fire, locked in formation. The air bison, with his son and the waterbender, he had intercepted on the way. The Avatar lays still on the ground. Your prey has wrought destiny to his liking.

But destiny is unshakeable. It is like a mountain, unmovable, no matter the hail and torrents thrown at it. You know this. Your prey does not.

Ozai cackles, but he has not won. He will never win. You will never let him. This day, this victory, is nothing, no more real than fog, and it is his prison. Destiny will never be changed.

Ozai stands underneath a red sky, his airships ahead, and earthen columns around him. A stray breeze sends a spire of stone toppling, burying your prey in darkness. Ozai wails, screams, claws at the mist as victory is ripped from his hands after being so maddeningly close.

But you are there to console him. Ozai falls into the fog's embrace, again...

* * *

Zuko stares at the empty jail cell with glassy eyes. "What do you mean he's _gone_?"

The warden mutters, just as appalled, "He up and vanished, my lord. It's like he turned to smoke."

"I don't care what it's _like_! I can't go out to my people and say that my father turned to fog and disappeared! They'll think I'm covering up a murder, or a kidnapping, or—or an escape!" The Firelord whirls on the second guard in the room. "Tell me what happened."

The man tenses, and answers, "I was outside his door all night, my lord. No scuffle. No one went in. The cell's still locked."

"There had to be something, _anything._ "

The warden looks aside and the guard is visibly uneasy. "He was… shouting all night, like he'd gone mad. You could hear it all through the prison." He takes a shaky breath, and echoes:

"'Again. I'll do it again.'"


	2. Chapter 2

Your prey love to give themselves names. The Moon-Slayer. The Phoenix King. The Great Uniter.

Kuvira thinks herself grand, thinks all her dreams possible if only she acted perfectly, and that blind, tireless faith means she's halfway in your embrace already.

But dreams are brittle. They shatter like shale, and her day turns cursed. She marches into Republic City, thinking the world in the palm of her hand. But the Avatar outwits her. Cheap tactics and guerrilla forces make fractures in her plans, which turn quickly to broken shards. She sacrifices her fiancé in vain, an attempt at a quick victory. Her metal colossus falls. She throws her blind faith in a broken spirit cannon, which fails her. The Avatar bends the energy from the ensuing blast away, throws herself and your prey into the Spirit World, and almost snatches Kuvira from your grasp in the process. But you cloud her eyes, just in time.

And she will be yours.

* * *

The blinding light of the spirit cannon turns to soft gray fog.

 _Three years of work. A lifetime of suffering. All of it wasted, because of one day._ A voice wafts into Kuvira's ear. _Can I help you?_

* * *

"I won't fail," she says, to herself, to her troops, to you. "Not again."

It is sunrise. The colossus marches.

Across the mountain range, a bison flies into view, and a shot of the spirit cannon cleaves the sky. It's a fleeting miss, and Kuvira is even less amused with it than the first time around. She takes a breath to ease herself. It is a minor error, and if victory slips from her fingers again, it is something easily fixed.

On she marches, to the fringe of Republic City, where rows of United Forces soldiers stand like ants at her feet. Their looks of awe are no less gratifying the second time around. She spares no time to give them a show of power, blasting a purple ray into the harbour, and Raiko's surrender plays like music in her ears.

She expects a fight, she can't stop that, but she has the knowledge of the past on her side. There would be paint on her windows, airbenders on the rooftops, a building collapsing, metalbenders tying her feet, hummingbirds buzzing around that she quickly swats out of the sky. She has all the knowledge she needs to win. Or, so she thinks.

There's a crash, a bang, and an engineer telling her the mech has been compromised. They'd slipped into her colossus again, despite her efforts. They'd taken a plasma cutter from the hummingbird wreck and drilled inside while Kuvira had thought herself victor. It's mere minutes after when the Avatar burst into the cockpit, all confidence and blind faith, demanding a fight.

There's nowhere to go from there, so you cloud her mind and let the sun rise again. And then once more. And then another. And another...

Kuvira has a checklist in her mind, one she fiddles and changes with each attempt: Shoot the bison, send soldiers to the factory, destroy the Future Industries tower to stop the electromagnetic pulse, swat those damned airbenders out of the sky. There is a specific order of events, she knows, that will end in her victory, but Kuvira is learning that it is not as clear cut as it seems. Her enemies change tactic right along with her: juke her spirit cannon, find another tower to create a pulse, ice her colossus and sink it ankle deep in lava, crash through its windows. Finding and executing the right path is like trying to get the stars in the sky to align; just as one moves into place, a thousand others slip away.

All she can do is ball her fists and steel her will, every time the Avatar bursts into the cockpit with that familiar blind faith and demands a fight. The difference between them, though, is that the Avatar's faith pays off, and Kuvira's never will.

* * *

"What am I doing wrong?"

 _It doesn't matter. You can try again._

* * *

It is sunrise. The colossus marches.

Kuvira's methods have been stretched to their limits. She's come to realize that victory had not slipped from her fingers that day; it had been set on top of a mountain, a hundred miles from her hand, and it was a torturous climb to reach it.

How many times she's seen this sunrise, Kuvira does not know, but she wishes she would never have to see it again. She must though, for her people and for her Empire, she must bend this day to her will.

Time chips away at all resolve, like a river slowly cutting into stone, and Kuvira's attempts grow hectic. The moment things stray off the twisted track she has in her mind, Kuvira stands silent, and simply waits for the day to begin again. Victory is as unfathomable to her now as defeat was to her the first time around.

Once, she had the arrogance to feel hopeful. The shot at the sky bison, the explosion at the factory, the spirit cannon slicing mercilessly through the city; one of those must have been the Avatar's end.

(And truly, it should have. But in this mist prison, there is no guiding destiny, there is no victory day. This day is cursed and always will be, and any triumph is as substantial as fog.)

The Avatar bursts into the chamber, and Kuvira snaps.

"How are you doing this?! What sort of power do you have to be able to best me every time I live this day? Are there signs I ignored? I've taken everything— _everything_ — into account, yet you're here every time!"

Korra does not have answers for her; in fact, she finds your prey quite deranged, especially when Kuvira turns away, refuses to fight, and simply waits for the day to end. You let the world turn to mist around her.

Kuvira has no clue how to guide destiny, and there is no one there to tell her how. She grasps at every string of chance, no matter how illogical or crazed, in the hopes that one will take her where she wants.

But reining destiny is like grasping at sand: it will slip between your fingers, no matter how tight you hold it. Though, grasping sand would be a mercy; in this world, Kuvira grabs at smoke.

* * *

 _Don't lose faith. I'm sure you'll get it this time._

* * *

It is sunrise. The colossus rises.

Kuvira has discovered a bitter truth: the world is not hers to control. Her faith in herself has been ground up day after cursed day, until it is nothing but dust. She does nothing, and when she does nothing the day plays as it did the first time. Kuvira watches herself as if detached from her body, and she fails over and over and over...

The bison over the mountain range. The armies at the harbour. The fall of her colossus.

When she runs into the Spirit Wilds, she fires off the spirit cannon, and though she knows the attempt is futile, she can do nothing else but repeat this day. The silhouette of the Avatar burns into her eyelids, and as always, soft gray fog comes to embrace her.

Kuvira sits despondent in the mist. Dreams and faith lay like a dead fire under her eyes. She is almost yours.

You waft towards your prey through the open path she leaves you. Then, a spark jolts in her eyes, and she lets you get no closer.

"The Avatar saved me."

A wisp floats by her face as you try to reach her. _Again, Kuvira? You will destroy her this time, I'm sure._

"She saved me." Her eyes hold a wonder, a hope, that you haven't seen in a hundred sunrises. "Why did she save me?"

 _Once more now. Come to me._

"No. I need to find out why."

Kuvira stands, and walks towards the mauve light. Every step she takes, you retreat from her path, for you can only go as far as she will let you. Light filters through the mist, and Kuvira wakes to the Spirit World and the Avatar, and never looks back at you.

Your prey slips from your embrace.


End file.
